From the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Throughout the history of Japan, its cities have been destroyed again and again by war, fire and earthquake. After each catastrophe, the Japanese have rebuilt, bigger and better. One hopes and expects that they will do the same again. –Lesley Downer, The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 2011
The Japanese disaster “will put new nuclear development on ice,” said Toronto energy consultant Tom Adams, the former executive director of Energy Probe. He said the nuclear industry was already facing challenges, noting that vast shale gas resources in North America and other parts of the world were starting to make cheaper gas-fired plants the electricity generators of choice. – Eric Reguly, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Neither new nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, wind nor solar are economic. Natural gas is queen. It is domestically abundant and is the bridge to the future. – John Rowe, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Obama’s energy plan relies heavily on nuclear power to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions harmful to the climate as well as to reduce dependence on imported oil. The president proposed tripling federal loan guarantees to $54.5 billion to help build new reactors in the 2012 budget plan he sent to Congress. — Jeremy van Loon and Mark Chediak, Bloomberg 15 March 2011
President Barack Obama’s energy agenda appears to be jinxed. While Japan’s nuclear meltdown may be an ocean away, the industry has quickly become the latest example of a policy in peril not long after the White House embraced it. –Darren Samuelsohn, Politico, 15 March 2011
Despite Japan’s crisis, India and China and some other energy-ravenous countries say they plan to keep using their nuclear power plants and building new ones. With those two countries driving the expansion — and countries from elsewhere in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East also embracing nuclear power in response to high fossil fuel prices and concerns about global warming — the world’s stock of 443 nuclear reactors could more than double in the next 15 years, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group.—The New York Times, 14 March 2011
New data suggests Israel may not only have much larger gas resources than believed, but also the 3rd largest deposit of oil shale in the world. As a consequence of these new estimates, Israel may emerge as the third largest deposit of oil shale, after the US and China. –Dore Gold, The Jerusalem Post, 11 March 2011
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Some more reportsd on the completly irrisponsible, in some cases bald faced lying, on the “nuclear disaster” in japan:
http://genkienglish.net/teaching/japan-earthquake-and-the-irresponsible-foreign-media?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GenkiEnglish+%28
” Forget any pretence of informative news, this was purely emotionally driven exaggeration on the part of the BBC. ” and “Then today we have the nuclear reports with the press completely misreporting the science. Google News at one point yesterday had a picture of an atmospheric atomic bomb detonation, the daily mail today had a full colour picture of the the Hiroshima nuclear attack. That is just not on. Yes radiation can be dangerous but a light water reactor is not a nuclear bomb. This is just irresponsible reporting.”
But wait, there’s more!:
http://m.cnbc.com/us_news/42105046/1?refresh=true “Foreign bankers flee Tokyo as nuclear crisis deepens” Morons! No wonder we have a banking crisis!
http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/15/japan.nuclear.reactors/?hpt=T1
“That dose quickly diminished with distance from the plant, and radiation fell back to levels where it posed no immediate public health threat, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said.” and “Radiation levels in Tokyo, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of the plant, were twice the usual level on Tuesday. But the concentration — 0.809 microsieverts per hour — posed no health threat, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said.”
These “reporter” types should go back to reporting real crisises, like oh, say, this http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110316/ap_on_fe_st/us_odd_squirrel_attack “Squirrel attacking residents of Vt. neighborhood” I think thats about their speed…
Alchemy
March 16, 2011 4.05am
Thanks for the URL fix. I just wondered if there was any tracking of such land movements affecting Earth’s spin, or if anyone had collated/calculated past changes. Considering the many large earthquakes just in the last century it could be quite a dance if the Earth’s movement was affected even some of the time.
Perhaps weatherpeople would have interest in this if these events alter the wind patterns?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110316-japan-earthquake-shortened-days-earth-axis-spin-nasa-science/
Seems they’re only just beginning to get to grips with such shifts, since GPS. Perhaps someone will do a model over the past centuries.
Theo Goodwin says:
March 15, 2011 at 3:34 pm
“Do you know the length of the average day in the Highlands of Scotland during January?”
Doesn’t really matter. We’re talking about fuels that can be easily stored and transported. You can make enough fuel in the summer to last the rest of the year and if you can’t do that it can still be imported. If you have local fossil fuel sources that are less expensive than farm-grown imports then use those instead. Most regions in the world have adequate sunlight and enough non-arable land. If the remainder choose another route it’s not going to make much difference. What will make a big difference is it will drive down the price of fossil fuels. Imported fossil oil at $100/bbl can’t compete with farm-grown oil at $30/bbl so unless the fossil source can operate at a profit at $30/bbl they’ll have to close up shop.
Roger Carr says:
March 16, 2011 at 3:19 am
I read your comment as a general denial that radioactive particulates don’t lodge in the lungs and cause cancer many years later. If non-radioactive asbestos dust can substantially raise risk of lung cancer it seems like radioactive dust would be even worse as energetic particles emitted by radioactive materials damage DNA. That’s as settled as settled gets in science no different than how high or long term exposure to ultraviolet light increases the incidence of skin cancer. The mechanism is the same. UV from the sun has sufficient energy and penetrative power to break chemical bonds in DNA which eventually breaks a replication inhibition mechanism in a damaged cell and a malignant tumor starts growing from it.
I don’t believe it is the ‘same’? Asbestos is very chemically stable/inert substance. The type of lung cancer associated with it seems to be limited to a range fiber lengths that are physically short enough, (generally unnaturally so), that your body treats them /reacts to them differently in some way.
Example from NIH: